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I must be nuts, because this is definitely on the list of, “Things I don’t need to do to my self” and yet, without more than a moment’s hesitation, I happily hit the confirm button and my new EBay purchase is on its way to my greedy little hands. After the initial giddiness wears off in the following seconds, I get a minor case of the regrets.

Dear Lord. Why did I just buy that? It was hardly out of my budget at a whopping one cent (plus twelve dollars shipping and handling), but I can’t help but think of the time it will take up in my life once it arrives.

This is a very bad habit that I need to get a better hand on. Somehow, I just can’t listen to the rational voices in my head when it comes to hobbies, especially when they are old, anachronistic and involve unappreciated pieces of history. The bit of my brain that knows better than to linger over stuff like this tends to get shouted down but the other voices in my head screaming, “That’s so cool! You can do this! It’s going to be so much fun!”

And therein lies the root of the problem. I can do it… And it WILL be fun!

All my life, I’ve approached much of my world with the attitude that I fix something if I can just get it apart and set my mind to it. Over the years, it’s given me the opportunity to joyously get way, way, WAY in over my head in all sorts of situations. Oddly, it’s really my ideal definition of a good time.

Most of the doodads we encounter in our lives is not beyond our ability to noodle with if we just try. You have to be ready to be really, really horrible at it first, but if you keep trying, you’ll see that you get a little less horrible each time you return to the task. Most of what we see as someone’s neigh-magical ability to make a cake, do electrical wiring, care for a newborn, build a greenhouse or identify types of trees just comes down to being okay with looking like an idiot until you work it out and get proficient, and most people don’t want to appear to be that fool, so they never try.

Having spent much of my life looking foolish, I don’t tend to shrink away from a little extra dose. I guess that I figure that if you’ve got egg on your face, you might as well just shrug and order another omelet.

The excuse is that someone, “can’t do that” when face to face with something that falls outside their area of expertise, is at heart, a huge copout. It’s not that they can’t, but rather don’t want to try and fail… Which makes sense too, I suppose.

It’s just not how I’m wired. I should know. I’ve rewired much of myself.

BZZZT!

The cool part is, the more that you poke at random tasks and skills, the less intimidating the world becomes. Without hesitation, you’ll start picking up tools to give something a try. You’ll open the cookbook to soufflés and give it a wing. You’ll crack open that electronic gizmo to see what exactly is making that crunching noise when you turn it on. It’s not magic, after all!

The downside to this state of mind is that you simply can’t look at something without wanting to dive in and try it your self. Couple that with a love of all things old and semi-forgotten, and antiques shops turn into your personal crack house. Access to EBay is like having your drug dealer on speed dial.

All that stuff.

All that broken stuff!

All that broken, cheap stuff that, with some care, might just work AGAIN!

Soon, you’ve visualized the sad, broken widget staring up at you with big, mooneyes and you, yes YOU, are its only hope. If you don’t fix it, then it will become trash and rust away to time. How the hell are you going to ever look at your self in the mirror again?

So you buy it, you clean it, research it to the best of your abilities and perhaps buy two or three more of that same item to scavenge for parts. After all, they haven’t made tin radial sprockets in that size or shape since… oh… 1932.

Being a sufferer of this type of thinking, I have leaped head first into far too many such projects and though I often succeed at breathing life back into some heavily patinaed (read: rusted) and misused whatchamacallit, what I don’t have is the time, space and money to pursue many more of these little diversions. I’ve tried to call it quits on this sort of endeavor, but complete success is an illusive thing. I have managed to stem the flow a bit though. That’s why my latest transgression was bugging me so much. Not only was it a failure on my part to stay the hell away from some new/old machine that would need my attention, but it involved a whole new array of potentially cool and fun items that I could oh-so-easily slide into picking up for bargains here and there. Naturally, a whole bunch of bargains tend to equal real money once it’s all added together.